Resident Seeks Witnesses After Dispute Over Direction Of Garden Gnome Escalates

A resident of a cul-de-sac of eleven houses has cable-tied a laminated appeal for witnesses to four lamp posts and placed it in the parish newsletter, following what he describes as "a sequence of incidents" involving a garden ornament belonging to the household opposite.

The appeal concerns events on the morning of Saturday September 12, when the ornament, a ceramic fishing gnome approximately 40cm tall, was broken at the ankles during an attempt to lift it from a paving slab outside number 6.

Police confirmed that a community support officer attended the close the following week and gave "words of advice to both households". No offence has been recorded and no further action is planned.

The resident behind the appeal, Raymond Pell, 71, a retired air traffic controller who has lived at number 5 since 1994, said he had placed the notice "because the record needs correcting, and nobody else is going to correct it". This newspaper has agreed not to name the close.

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The Notice

WITNESSES SOUGHT — Saturday September 12, approx. 10.40am

I am appealing for anyone who was on or near the close on the above morning and saw or heard the exchange between myself and the occupant of number 6 at the front of that property.

In particular I would like to hear from anyone who can confirm:

1. That I remained on the pavement throughout and did not step onto the path of number 6, which I measure as starting 300mm back from the kerb edge.
2. That my voice was at the level of a normal conversation held across a road. I have been told it was not. I was there.
3. That the ornament broke when the occupant of number 6 drove a garden spade under its base, and not before.

Some background, as people have been getting it wrong.

The ornament was originally mine. It came with my house. I put it out at the kerb on Saturday March 21 with a box of gardening magazines and a hostess trolley, with a sign saying FREE. I had no objection to it going to a good home. I did not expect the home to be eleven metres away.

From April it was positioned facing directly into my front room. I turned it a quarter-turn to face down the close, where an ornament of that kind would normally face. By the next morning it had been turned back. Between April 4 and August 30 I made 61 corrections, all logged. Each one was reversed by morning. I raised it in writing in July and with the residents' association in August. The association said it does not adjudicate ornaments.

Over the bank holiday weekend I secured the ornament to its slab with a small amount of exterior grab adhesive, facing down the close. I have never denied this. It was a reasonable step after 61 corrections and a letter, and I would point out the ornament stood perfectly well for twelve days afterwards.

I have no issue with the family. I have an issue with the spade.

Anyone with information can put a note through the door of number 5. Please don't knock after 7pm.

R. Pell

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The Household At Number 6

The couple at number 6, who moved to the close in February with their daughter, now five, declined to be interviewed. A short statement was passed to this newspaper through the residents' association.

It said that the gnome had been collected from the kerb by their daughter, who had been told it belonged to "the man across the road", and that she had named it after him.

The statement said she had been turning it round each morning so that it faced his window, "because she thought he'd like to see it". The family said they had explained this in their reply to Mr Pell's letter in July.

It confirmed that her father had tried to free the gnome with a spade on September 12 so it could be moved to the back garden "to put an end to it", and that it had broken during the attempt.

Mr Pell said he had been aware "for some time" that the turning was being done by the child, and that it did not change the measurements.

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Liability

DT

When an item fails under load after being bonded to a fixed surface, the question is whether the failure was caused by the bond or by the load. In my experience the honest answer is usually both, and neither party enjoys hearing it. For what it is worth, I have never seen a claim succeed on a garden ornament that the claimant had previously given away.

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On The Close

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Community Poll

Community Poll

Latest reader breakdown

Who should have the final say on which way the gnome faces?

The household whose path it stands on38%

The household it was facing9%

The child53%